HIGH POINT, N.C. (AP) ­- With only a limited amount of freedom allowed, Martha Stewart could have chosen a more glamorous place to visit than High Point.

But the domestic diva, who is still under house arrest and required to wear an electronic-monitoring ankle device for lying about a stock deal, had business in mind when she traveled to the furniture capital to promote new additions to her home furnishing collection, the Martha Stewart Signature line by Bernhardt Furniture.

The Lenoir-based manufacturer, which began producing Stewart-endorsed furniture in 2002, confirmed that she appeared at an invitation-only event Monday for furniture retailers at the company’s High Point showroom.

Stewart is allowed to leave her country home 40 miles north of Manhattan for work.

She received permission for the brief trip to High Point, according to Jim Blackford, deputy chief U.S. probation officer for the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York.

Rodriguez gets ‘Lost’

NEW YORK (AP) – Michelle Rodriguez is getting “Lost” full-time.

The 26-year-old actress will join the cast of the stranded-on-an-island drama when production resumes for its second season, ABC announced Monday.

In a flashback scene on the season finale, Rodriguez played Ana-Lucia Cortez, a passenger on doomed Oceanic flight No. 815, who flirted with Jack Shepard, played by Matthew Fox, at an airport bar in Sydney, Australia.

Rodriguez first caught the attention of movie audiences as a boxer in 2000’s “Girlfight.” She has also starred in “S.W.A.T.,” “Resident Evil,” “Blue Crush” and “The Fast and the Furious.”

ABC didn’t specify what Rodriguez’s role would be when the show returns, but many “Lost” theorists believe passengers in the back half of the plane, where Cortez said she was sitting, are alive and haven’t been discovered.

“Lost” will air Wednesdays (9 p.m. ET) this fall.

NEW YORK (AP) – Mandy Moore is a singer and an actress, and she also designs T-shirts under the label Mblem. But she doesn’t call herself a fashion designer.

At Monday night’s Council of Fashion Designers of America Fashion Awards, Moore said the likes of Donna Karan, Ralph Lauren and Vera Wang – who was named the year’s top womenswear designer – operated “at a completely different level.”

“I’m just here as a fan of fashion. I don’t have it in me to do this,” the 21-year-old said.

However, Moore was quite pleased with the outfit she chose for the black-tie gala at the New York Public Library. “It’s vintage Bill Blass,” she said of her short white dress with black appliques. “I found it myself and I’m really proud of it. It’s fun and fresh.”

She added a black crocodile Coach clutch purse and bright green stiletto sandals.

Also attending the fashion world’s equivalent of the Oscars were Sarah Michelle Gellar, who wore a chocolate brown gown by Max Azria Atelier; Nicole Richie, who wore a blush-colored beaded gown by Michael Kors; and Claire Danes, who came with designer Behnaz Sarafpour.

Models Iman and Heidi Klum each arrived with their singer-husbands – David Bowie and Seal, respectively. Iman wore a silver beaded gown with spaghetti straps and a pregnant Klum was in a black jersey Donna Karan gown.

Along with Wang, top CFDA honorees were John Varvatos for menswear and Marc Jacobs for accessory design. Kate Moss received an award for her fashion influence and Diane von Furstenberg received a lifetime achievement award.

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NEW YORK (AP) – Nicole Kidman is carefully not casting judgment on ex-husband Tom Cruise’s relationship with Katie Holmes.

When asked in early May about Cruise’s very public romance with Holmes, Kidman didn’t address the subject directly. However, when asked about photographic publicity stunts in general, Kidman tells Vanity Fair in its July issue, on newsstands June 14: “In terms of your life, if you start to exploit it, then what’s real, and what’s not? What’s yours, and what isn’t?”

Kidman and Cruise divorced in 2001 after almost 10 years of marriage.

“When it all exploded and we were in Cannes with “Moulin Rouge.’ … “My sister and I slept in the same bed together. She would just hold me,” Kidman told Vanity Fair.

“When we came out of the big screening and there were swarms of people, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. So I just sort of eyeballed her as if to say, “Help! Help!’ Taking absolute control, she took me into the bathroom, unlaced my corset and the dress I was wearing, took my shoes off, and said, “You’re going to be OK.”‘

Cruise and Holmes were photographed together in Rome in April and later confirmed they were dating. He stars in Steven Spielberg’s upcoming “War of the Worlds” and Holmes will co-star with Christian Bale in “Batman Begins.”

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LOS ANGELES (AP) – There was quite a 55th birthday present for entertainer Stevie Wonder – the birth of his seventh child.

Wonder and his fashion-designer wife, Kai Millard Morris, announced Monday that they are the parents of a son, born on May 13. He is the couple’s first child.

Mandla Kadjaly Carl Stevland Morris weighed 7 pounds, 8 ounces and was 20 inches long, said publicist Howard Bragman. Mandla means powerful/defiant in Zulu and Kadjaly is Swahili for “born from God,” the spokesman said in a statement.

No other details were released.

“It’s a perfectly healthy family,” Bragman said.

The Grammy-winning singer is in the studio completing his “A Time to Love” album, his first in 10 years.

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NEW YORK (AP) – Katie Holmes says she’s more in love with Tom Cruise with each passing day.

“I’ve got to tell you, the most extraordinary thing happened to me one day in April when I met Tom,” she told syndicated TV show “Access Hollywood” in an interview Monday night. “I’m more and more in love every day. It’s like, “Wow.”‘

The 26-year-old actress also said that she enjoyed Cruise’s profession of love on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” last month. “I sat there and saw that and said, “I am the luckiest woman in the world.”‘

A starry-eyed Cruise got down on his knees and repeatedly jumped up on the talk-show host’s couch, saying that his love for Holmes was “beyond cool.”

When asked if she felt hesitant about joining Cruise in front of the show’s audience when he went backstage for her, she replied, “I was excited. … When Tom calls for me, I’m coming.”

“I miss him right now,” she said, “and it’s been like one hour.”

At the taping of the 2005 MTV Movie Awards in Los Angeles Saturday, Holmes poked fun at Cruise’s “Oprah” appearance by dropping down on one knee and asking the crowd, “Should I go get him?”

Cruise, 42, laughed as he accepted a lifetime achievement award from Holmes.

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